The Iranian Hostage Crisis - Short History - Department History - Office of the Historian The Iranian Hostage Crisis - Short History - Department History A Short History of the Department of State The Iranian Hostage Crisis Representing the United States abroad has been a dangerous job since the beginning of the Republic, but that was never truer than during the Carter Administration. In the wake of a successful revolution by Islamic fundamentalists against the pro-American Shah of Iran, the United States became an object of virulent criticism and the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was a visible target. On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the embassy and detained more than 50 Americans, ranging from the Chargé d’Affaires to the most junior members of the staff, as hostages. The Iranians held the American diplomats hostage for 444 days. While the courage of the American hostages in Tehran and of their families at home reflected the best tradition of the Department of State, the Iran hostage crisis undermined Carter’s conduct of foreign policy. The crisis dominated the headlines and news broadcasts and made the Administration look weak and ineffectual.

Although patient diplomacy conducted by Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher eventually resolved the crisis, Carter’s foreign policy team often seemed weak and vacillating. U.S. hostage being paraded in front of the public The Administration’s vitality was sapped, and the Soviet Union took advantage of America’s weakness to win strategic advantage for itself. In 1979, Soviet-supported Marxist rebels made strong gains in Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. Vietnam fought a successful border war with China and took over Cambodia from the murderous Khmer Rouge. And, in late 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to support its shaky Marxist government. In light of these challenges to global stability, President Carter significantly altered his view of both the Soviet Union and the advice of his own advisers. Carter initially favored Secretary Vance ’s policy of negotiation, but by 1980 was more receptive National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s more confrontational stance. Once again the National Security Council and the Department of State were in open conflict. The issue came to a head when Secretary Vance opposed a mission to rescue the hostages in Iran—a move championed by Brzezinski.

Vance had been correct—the 1980 mission was a debacle. But Vance was frustrated and he resigned in protest in April 1980. Cyrus Vance was the first Secretary of State clearly and publicly to tie his resignation to a difference of opinion over policy since William Jennings Bryan in 1915. Carter chose Senator Edmund Muskie as his new Secretary. Cyrus Roberts Vance - People - Department History - Office of the Historian Cyrus Roberts Vance - People - Department History Biographies of the Secretaries of State: Cyrus Roberts Vance (1917–2002) Introduction Cyrus Roberts Vance was appointed Secretary of State by President Jimmy Carter on January 21, 1977. He entered his position on January 23 and resigned on April 28, 1980 in protest over President Carter’s decision to attempt a military rescue of American hostages in Iran. Cyrus Roberts Vance, 57th Secretary of State Rise to Prominence Vance attended Yale University, earning a B.A. in 1939 and continued on to Yale Law School, earning his J.D. in 1942.

After receiving his law degree, Vance served in the Navy until 1946. He practiced law at a New York City firm for the next decade and then entered government service in the late 1950s. During the 1960s, Vance rose through the ranks of the Department of Defense. He served as Secretary of the Army under President John F. Kennedy, gaining his first experience with human rights issues when the army was used to enforce the integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson made Vance the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Although an early supporter of U.S. action in the Vietnam War, Vance later came to oppose it, urging President Johnson to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. In 1968, Johnson appointed Vance as a delegate to the Paris peace talks and in January 1969, Vance received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. During the early 1970s, he returned to practicing law while also becoming a member of the Trilateral Commission, a private organization founded in 1973 to create closer cooperation among Americans, Europeans, and Asians.

In 1976, a fellow Trilateral Commission member, President-Elect Carter, asked Vance to be his Secretary of State. Infuence on American Diplomacy Vance emphasized negotiations over military confrontation during his tenure as Secretary of State and shared with President Carter a belief that human rights should be a central tenet of U.S. diplomacy. Within his first months of entering office, Vance worked diligently on arms control issues with the Soviet Union and sought a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Although his initial efforts bore no immediate fruit, over the course of the next two years, Vance helped negotiate the Panama Canal Treaty, which would relinquish U.S. control of the canal zone; the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab neighbor; the restoration of full diplomatic relations with China; and a settlement among political factions in Zimbabwe that allowed for majority rule. In 1979, Vance grew frustrated as President Carter appeared to move toward more confrontational policies, disregarding Vance’s advice on several issues, including how to handle the political crisis in Iran that led to the Shah’s ouster and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

During this political turmoil, Iranian student militants seized the American Embassy and took its staff hostage . After President Carter ordered a rescue attempt to free the hostages in the spring of 1980, an attempt that ultimately failed, Vance decided to resign because he believed a military operation would be in vain and would damage the negotiations he had been working on to win the release of the hostages. Although Vance returned to private law practice, he frequently found himself drawn back into a foreign policy role and served on several diplomatic missions, most notably as the United Nations Special Envoy to Bosnia in 1993. Vance died in early 2002. Born 1917 Entry on Duty: January 23, 1977 Termination of Appointment: April 28, 1980 PPT – The Jimmy Carter Presidency PowerPoint presentation | free to download - id: 2227f9-ZDc1Z PPT – The Jimmy Carter Presidency PowerPoint presentation | free to download - id: 2227f9-ZDc1Z The Adobe Flash plugin is needed to view this content The Jimmy Carter Presidency Description: Did the Bakke decision have anything to do with Jimmy Carter's administration? ...

Consider both Federal and State government responses. ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation Number of Views:84 Title: The Jimmy Carter Presidency 1 James Earl Carter (D) - Georgia governor (from Plains, GA) VP Candidate - Walter Mondale (MN) A Washington Outsider Moderate Southerner regarding social issues - especially race Appealed to small town America 4 Key Events and Issues of the Jimmy Carter Presidency Pardon of Vietnam War Draft Evaders On Civil Rights and Affirmative Action Energy Crisis - Energy Policy - National Energy Act - Formation of Cabinet level Energy Department Deregulation of some selected industries National Crisis of Confidence - Malaise Three-Mile Island Nuclear Accident SALT II Treaty (Nuclear Arms Talks) Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Boycott of 1980 Moscow Olympics 6 Jimmy Carter and Civil Rights Bakke v. California (1978) Bakke applied to UC-Davis medical school. - denied admittance Filed suit - claimed reverse discrimination Decision upheld schools right to consider race as one factor Bakke admitted to the University Supported concept of affirmative action but limited ways to promote it.

Carter - Moderate Southern Democrat Amnesty to Vietnam era draft evaders Supported affirmative action by appointing more minorities to government posts than any president before him Unrelated to Carter was the Bakke decision handed down from the Supreme Court during his term. 7 Jimmy Carter and Civil RightsDISCUSSION QUESTIONS Did the Bakke decision have anything to do with Jimmy Carters administration? What qualifies a president as having a favorable record on civil rights issues? Is it a matter of numbers, who is appointed, their political viewpoint, or what? Discuss. How much does political party have to do with Civil Rights successes (both perceived and real)? 8 Jimmy Carter came across as an honest man of deep religious faith who promised not to lie to the American people. Carter immediately tried to help the nation heal some of the wounds of the past. Ex. He issued a pardon to thousands of Vietnam War draft dodgers. Carter tackled problems in the economy and with energy. Finally, Carter tried to deal with environmental issues. Inflation and unemployment were high. Carter made the development of a national energy policy a priority.

Wanted to ease dependence on foreign oil through energy conservation, developing new energy supplies, and loosening government regulation of the American oil industry Asked Americans to conserve energy Promoted the development of alternative energy sources The economy added many new jobs to help battle unemployment. Carter was unable to bring down inflation, in fact, it got worse. Carters energy policies were successful at helping reduce American dependence on foreign oil. American production of energy increased under Carter. Believed that conserving fuel was a key way to avoid plundering the environment Passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act The act protected more than 100 million acres of land and doubled the size of the nations park and wildlife refuge system. In 1979 a mishap at a nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island terrified the nation. Although little radiation was released, public concern about the safety of nuclear power grew. Chemicals that a company dumped in New York began to seep up through the ground at Love Canal and were linked to high rates of birth defects. Experts warned that there were likely many more toxic waste sites around the nation.

11 The Energy Crises of the 1970s OPEC Oil Embargo of 1974 Gas Shortages 1977- Carter proposes comprehensive National Energy Policy 1977 - Department of Energy - Cabinet position added to Executive Branch Seeking of alternative fuel sources More fuel-efficient autos More domestic petroleum exploration and production 13 The Energy Crisis Crude-Oil Imports 14 Oil Consumption in the 1970s and Dependence on Oil Imports The Energy Crisis Gasoline Prices 16 The Energy Crisis Crude-Oil Imports and Gasoline Prices The United States Department of Energy October 1977 The Department of Energy Organization Act brought the federal government's agencies and programs into a single agency. The Department of Energy, activated on October 1, 1977, assumed the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and parts and programs of several other agencies. The Department provided the framework for a comprehensive and balanced national energy plan by coordinating and administering the energy functions of the federal government.

The Department undertook responsibility for long-term, high-risk research and development of energy technology, federal power marketing, energy conservation, the nuclear weapons program, energy regulatory programs, and a central energy data collection and analysis program. 21 The National Energy Act of 1978 Higher tax on inefficient cars (gas-guzzlers) New utilities to use other non-petroleum fuel sources Provide tax credits for homeowners seeking to make their homes more energy efficient Funding for alternative fuels research Focus on nuclear energy How successful was Jimmy Carters administration at dealing with the energy crisis facing the country in the 1970s? Are we able to evaluate how successful Carter was on the issue of energy? Were the energy problems something that existed prior to Carters presidency and if so, why do people place blame on his shoulders for problems he didnt create? Is it fair and/or accurate to evaluate presidents, their terms and their administrations based on events prior to their term that they had no control over? Do presidents ever have control over events during their term(s)? If so, how much? What control(s) do presidents have? Why is setting/establishing policy such a big deal for a presidential administration?

23 Media attention and public backlash to accident led to Nuclear Protests all over the world http//video.teacher.hotchalk.com/player/?id0nlc Three-Mile Island March 28, 1979 The Accident The accident at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, was the most serious in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history(1), even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community. But it brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. It also caused the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to tighten and heighten its regulatory oversight. Resultant changes in the nuclear power industry and at the NRC had the effect of enhancing safety. TMI led to anti-nuclear protests and demonstrations Safety of nuclear energy questioned 27 Evaluate the government responses to the Three-Mile Island (TMI) accident. Consider both Federal and State government responses. Analyze and explain the public reaction to TMI.

Was the anti-nuclear activism spawned by TMI necessary? Understandable? Was the reaction and subsequent press coverage an overreaction? Why or why not? 28 A Crisis of Confidence - Malaise Carter called a diverse group of leaders from around the country to Camp David in the summer of 1979. They shared candidly about the estate and the spirit of the American people. Carters speech on June 15, 1979 detailed a growing sense that Americans were experiencing a crisis of confidence. Generally and more popularly known as the Malaise speech although the word was not a part of his presentation. The Iranian Hostage situation dragged on throughout the presidential election year of 1980. The situation in Iran also drove up gasoline prices so that prices of goods in the United States went up and inflation soared. Many voters held Carter responsible for the problems and the downcast mood of the country. 30 Identify the principal figures on the cover of the magazine. Why are they depicted as lions? Who is Jimmy Carter being portrayed as in this painting? Why? How is that significant?

31 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (SALT II) Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Boycott of Moscow Summer Olympics 32 Basic ideas outlined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Carter expected friends and enemies alike to uphold the highest standards in the treatment of their citizens. Carter wrote to Brezhnev about his concerns with Soviet human rights issues. Brezhnev politely said that each country should mind their own business. Concluded SALT II talks in 1979 that limited nuclear weapons Formally recognized the government of the Communist Peoples Republic of China Ended recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan Carter came to office with little foreign-policy experience. Carter promised that the concept of human rights would be at the forefront of his foreign policy. Carter worked to strengthen ties between the United States and the Soviet Union and China. Carter gave control of the Panama Canal back to Panama. Carter helped Egypt and Israel deal with some of the divisions that caused conflicts between their countries. American control of the Panama Canal had been a source of conflict between the two countries. In 1977 Carter and Panamas leader agreed that Panama would take control of the canal by the end of 1999. The Senate narrowly approved the treaties.

For some Americans, loss of control of the canal represented a decline in American power. Camp David Accords Conflict between Egypt and Israel continued. Egypt would not recognize Israel and Israel continued to occupy Egyptian territory. Carter guided Anwar el-Sadat and Menachem Begin to a historic agreement that came to be called the Camp David Accords. Begin and Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. 35 Canal Zone run by United States since 1914 Treaty would return control of Canal Zone to Panama On September 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty promising to give control of the canal to the Panamanians by the year 2000. Divisive and controversial Why do you think the Panama Canal Treaty sparked such controversy within the United States? Consider the content of the treaty. What goal did the Carter administration hope to achieve by enacting the treaty? What criticism did conservatives have of the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty? Consider the roots of United States foreign expansion dating to the late 19th/early 20th century. How has our national perception of the United States identity in the world changed since then?

Define American self-awareness. Discuss the evolution of American self-awareness. September, 1978 at Camp David Presidential retreat center, Maryland. Israel to withdraw from Sinai Peninsula (occupied since 6-day war in 1967) Egypt - 1st Arab country to recognize the existence of the nation of Israel http//video.teacher.hotchalk.com/player/?id0nlc Quote on Camp David Accords The Camp David Accords rank as one of the most important achievements of the Carter administration. First, they opened the way to peace between Egypt and Israel, which transformed the entire political, military, and strategic character of the Middle East dispute. Genuine peace between Egypt and Israel meant there would be no major Arab-Israeli war, whatever the positions of other Arab groups. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance 43 Many historians and scholars consider the Camp David Accords the crowning achievement of Jimmy Carters presidency. Why do you think this is? What did the Camp David Accords represent and signify for peace in the Middle East? Why is the recognition of the state of Israel so divisive?

Détente - easing of tensions in foreign affairs - carried over from the Nixon and Ford administrations Carters stance on human rights angered Soviet leaders Carter spoke publicly in support of dissidents. Led to tension between the superpowers 46 How did international crises affect Carters presidency? In 1979 a series of events occurred that seemed to overwhelm Carters presidency. In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. On November 4, 1979, a mob attacked the American embassy in Tehran, Irans capital, and took several dozen Americans hostage. Soviets invaded Afghanistan to ensure continued Communist rule in the country. The attack threatened U.S.-Soviet relations and called into question Carters ability to respond to Soviet aggression. Carter blocked shipment of grain to the Soviet Union and said the United States would boycott the 1980 Olympics. Americans did not like the grain embargo or the Olympic boycott because they seemed to hurt the United States as much as the Soviet Union. Iran Revolution in Iran overthrew the shah and replaced him with the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini. The American government allowed the shah to enter the United States for medical treatmentthis action enraged many Iranians.

A mob attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took Americans hostage. Carters attempts to negotiate the release of the hostages went nowhere. A military attempt to rescue the hostages failed. 49 US supported Shah (King) of Iran The Shah had modernized Iran Supplier of oil and pro-Western leadership in the region. US overlooked repression and corruption of his administration Backed by Muslim Fundamentalists and liberal critics of the Shah Replaced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - who had been exiled October, 1979 - President Carter allowed Shah into US for cancer treatment. 53 Seizing the US Embassy in Tehran Nov.

4, 1979 Followers of Khomeini seized US Embassy 52 American hostages taken American public increasingly impatient for hostages release Nightline with Ted Koppel began nightly news updates and broadcasts Broke diplomatic relations with Iran Froze Iranian assets in the US 1980 Commando Mission to rescue hostages (disastrous crash in Iranian desert) 8 US soldiers died Hostages released and sent home - January 20-21, 1981 Inauguration of Ronald Reagan - same day Reagan sent Carter (as a private citizen) the day of the inauguration to greet the freed hostages 56 To what extent was the Carter administration responsible for the situation that developed in Iran in 1979? Could the United States have done something differently to rescue the hostages sooner? How much is a president able to really control events that occur during the term (s) they serve? How much do prior events impact the success or failure of a given presidential administration? 57 Carters administration gradually lost the confidence of the American public. (A Crisis of Confidence) Election year Carter lost to Republican Ronald Reagan in November of 1980 by a wide margin.

58 The Inflation Rate, 19602000 (p. 885) 60 Map 30.4 Presidential Election of 1980 (p. 903) 63 Evaluate the successes and failures of Jimmy Carters Presidential Administration. Use the documents, the readings, and your knowledge of the period from 1973-1981 to construct your response. (No Transcript) About PowerShow.com PowerShow.com is a leading presentation/slideshow sharing website. Whether your application is business, how-to, education, medicine, school, church, sales, marketing, online training or just for fun, PowerShow.com is a great resource. And, best of all, most of its cool features are free and easy to use. You can use PowerShow.com to find and download example online PowerPoint ppt presentations on just about any topic you can imagine so you can learn how to improve your own slides and presentations for free. Or use it to find and download high-quality how-to PowerPoint ppt presentations with illustrated or animated slides that will teach you how to do something new, also for free.

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Or use it to find and download high-quality how-to PowerPoint ppt presentations with illustrated or animated slides that will teach you how to do something new, also for free. Or use it to upload your own PowerPoint slides so you can share them with your teachers, class, students, bosses, employees, customers, potential investors or the world. Or use it to create really cool photo slideshows - with 2D and 3D transitions, animation, and your choice of music - that you can share with your Facebook friends or Google+ circles. That's all free as well! For a small fee you can get the industry's best online privacy or publicly promote your presentations and slide shows with top rankings. But aside from that it's free. We'll even convert your presentations and slide shows into the universal Flash format with all their original multimedia glory, including animation, 2D and 3D transition effects, embedded music or other audio, or even video embedded in slides. All for free. Most of the presentations and slideshows on PowerShow.com are free to view, many are even free to download.

(You can choose whether to allow people to download your original PowerPoint presentations and photo slideshows for a fee or free or not at all.) Check out PowerShow.com today - for FREE. There is truly something for everyone! Iran hostage crisis Encyclopedia > History > United States, Canada, and Greenland > U.S. History Iran hostage crisis Iran hostage crisis, in U.S. history, events following the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian students on Nov. 4, 1979. The overthrow of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran by an Islamic revolutionary government earlier in the year had led to a steady deterioration in Iran-U.S. relations. In response to the exiled shah's admission (Sept., 1979) to the United States for medical treatment, a crowd of about 500 seized the embassy. Of the approximately 90 people inside the embassy, 52 remained in captivity until the end of the crisis. President Carter applied economic pressure by halting oil imports from Iran and freezing Iranian assets in the United States. At the same time, he began several diplomatic initiatives to free the hostages, all of which proved fruitless. On Apr.

24, 1980, the United States attempted a rescue mission that failed. After three of eight helicopters were damaged in a sandstorm, the operation was aborted; eight persons were killed during the evacuation. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance , who had opposed the action, resigned after the mission's failure. In 1980, the death of the shah in Egypt and the invasion of Iran by Iraq (see Iran-Iraq War ) made the Iranians more receptive to resolving the hostage crisis. In the United States, failure to resolve the crisis contributed to Ronald Reagan's defeat of Carter in the presidential election. After the election, with the assistance of Algerian intermediaries, successful negotiations began. On Jan. 20, 1981, the day of President Reagan's inauguration, the United States released almost $8 billion in Iranian assets and the hostages were freed after 444 days in Iranian detention; the agreement gave Iran immunity from lawsuits arising from the incident. In 2000 former hostages and their survivors sued Iran under the 1996 Antiterrorism Act, which permits U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments in cases of state-sponsored terrorism.

The following year they won the lawsuit by default when Iran did not offer a defense. The U.S. State Dept. sought dismissal of the suit, arguing it would hinder its ability to negotiate international agreements, and a federal judge dismissed the plaintiffs' suit for damages in 2002, ruling that the agreement that resulted in their release barred awarding any damages. See G. Sick, All Fall Down (1985). The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History Former US secretary of state Warren Christopher dies at 85 | umuvugizi Former US secretary of state Warren Christopher dies at 85 Former US secretary of state Warren Christopher dies at 85 By Bart Barnes and Special to The Washington Post, Saturday, March 19, 2011 Warren M. Christopher, who helped negotiate a settlement to the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 and who confronted the ethnic violence in the Balkans and Rwanda while serving as secretary of state during President Bill Clinton’s first term, died March 18 at his home in Los Angeles of complications from kidney and bladder cancer.

He was 85. When Mr. Christopher became the 63rd U.S. secretary of state in 1993, he was already known to the public as an effective, if circumspect, negotiator who played a crucial role in brokering the release of the U.S. hostages in Tehran on the day Jimmy Carter yielded the presidency to Ronald Reagan in 1981. Earlier he had been the Carter administration’s point man in persuading the Senate to ratify the Panama Canal treaties, which eventually ceded U.S. control of the canal to Panama. He gained the support of crucial senators as the architect of a “reservation” giving the United States the right to protect the canal and then managed to persuade the Panamanians to accept the provision. When he was named Clinton’s secretary of state, Mr. Christopher was considered the veteran hand who would complement the former Arkansas governor’s limited foreign policy experience. Mr. Christopher’s primary responsibility was to ensure that crises in foreign policy did not undermine or interfere with the president’s domestic agenda.

It was the first time in more than a half-century, Clinton would later say, that the United States was “without a single, overriding threat to our security.” As a diplomat, Mr. Christopher projected an image of discretion and unflappability. People magazine included him in a feature on the best-dressed men in America. Dressing well, he said, “is a mark of the respect you have for others.” His language was reasoned but often noncommittal. His stock answer to questions about his personal success was “I’ve been very lucky.” Writers and commentators characterized him as dour, attentive to detail, patient, steady and poised, but rarely, if ever, charismatic. Clinton once joked that Mr. Christopher was “the only man ever to eat presidential M&Ms with a knife and fork.” No one was surprised when, on an official stopover in Ireland, he ordered Irish coffee, decaffeinated and without alcohol. In a normally high-profile office, Mr. Christopher shunned publicity, and he disliked being in the spotlight.

It was on his watch as secretary that peace accords were reached in 1995 in Dayton, Ohio, ending a three-year war and ethnic slaughter in Bosnia, but much of the news media attention was focused on Assistant Secretary of State Richard C. Holbrooke , who had handled the nitty-gritty of the negotiating. Mr. Christopher later described the agreement as “one of the greatest achievements in American diplomatic history.” Almost four years after stepping down as secretary of state, Mr. Christopher, a senior adviser to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, returned to the public arena as chief of the team that litigated the results of the Florida recount. But the lion’s share of public attention went to lawyer David Boies, who did most of the courtroom work. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Republican George W. Bush, whose legal team was spearheaded by another former secretary of state, James A. Baker III. At State, a tumultuous start As secretary of state, Mr. Christopher told U.S. News & World Report that his “first priority” was to “attack problems before they reach the crisis level” and to keep the United States from expending lives and fortune in international disputes.

“I’d much rather be known as somebody who was a preventer of crises than as a crisis manager,” he said. But he had a tumultuous beginning. In May 1993, just months into his new job, Mr. Christopher went to Europe to solicit Allied support for a plan to end ethnic cleansing in the Balkans by arming Bosnian Muslim forces and launching airstrikes against Serbian targets. He was unsuccessful and returned to tell Congress that Bosnia had become “a problem from hell.” Eventually, NATO would agree to a bombing campaign against the Serbs, which Mr. Christopher described as critical in ending the Bosnian slaughter. In Somalia, what began as a humanitarian relief effort in the final days of the George H.W. Bush administration ended with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in March 1994 in the aftermath of the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu. A month later, the Clinton administration became aware of a systematic slaughter in the African state of Rwanda that left an estimated 800,000 dead, most of them Tutsis. But the United States and other Western nations opted against intervention, and Mr.

Christopher authorized State Department personnel to use the word “genocide” only under limited conditions. Critics later contended that avoidance of the genocide characterization made it easier for the United States to follow a hands-off policy. In 1998, on a visit to the Rwandan capital of Kigali, Clinton said the United States had not acted quickly enough and apologized for not calling the killings genocide. Mr. Christopher also had little success on a 1994 diplomatic trip to China, which was marked by a roundup of dissidents despite Mr. Christopher’s advocacy on behalf of human rights. In spite of these setbacks, Mr. Christopher had several important international accomplishments as secretary of state. He accompanied the popularly elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide back to Haiti in 1994 following his restoration to power after an intervention by U.S. troops, acting under a U.N. mandate. He played an important role in the signing of peace accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and sought to resolve conflicts between Israel and Lebanese militants. But, like other special envoys, he failed to bring lasting peace to the Middle East.

He did the preliminary diplomatic groundwork for the expansion of NATO and extended a nuclear non-proliferation treaty with North Korea. After the Republican victories in the 1994 midterm elections, Mr. Christopher was reportedly ready to resign. According to a 1996 report in the New Republic, he offered his resignation, but it was rejected by Clinton after Gen. Colin L. Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) declined the post. Mr. Christopher stepped down as secretary of state in early 1997, tendering his resignation after Clinton’s reelection, and was succeeded by U.N. Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright. In his book “War in a Time of Peace,” David Halberstam wrote that some senior Democrats considered Mr. Christopher “too much the functionary, a capable and highly competent bureaucrat, but probably a limited one, a man lacking originality and beliefs of his own.” He was said to have surrendered initiative on foreign policy to others, including national security adviser Anthony Lake and the deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott. But there was a toughness about him too. Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland once quoted a top Democratic Party operative as saying that Mr.

Christopher was “the person you want to give an air of dignity to a knee to the groin if it has to be thrown.” In Tokyo Bay Warren Minor Christopher was born Oct. 27, 1925, in Scranton, N.D., the fourth of five children. His father, Ernest, managed a local bank and was forced to foreclose on friends’ and neighbors’ homes during the Depression. After suffering a stroke at 49, Ernest Christopher moved his family to Hollywood for the healthful climate. But when he died not long afterward, the younger Mr. Christopher was forced to support the family. He never forgot being thrust into poverty. He graduated from the University of Southern California while serving in the Navy during World War II. His ship was in Tokyo Bay when the Japanese signed the documents of surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. Before returning to the United States, he had a chance to go ashore for an eyewitness view of the war’s devastation. “What I saw on that trip has stayed with me,” he wrote in his 2001 memoir, “Chances of a Lifetime.” “Large groups of frightened Japanese huddled together in the streets, drifting aimlessly, hungry and homeless.

“When someone mentions war, these are the images that are called up for me. Not flags waving or bands playing, but rubble, hardship and suffering.” After the war, Mr. Christopher went to Stanford Law School, where he was a founder and the first president of the Stanford Law Review. He spoke of being awakened to the study of international affairs by the new law school dean, Carl Spaeth, who had been a Latin American specialist at the State Department during World War II. Spaeth helped his young protege gain a yearlong clerkship under U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas after Mr. Christopher graduated from Stanford in 1949. He then returned to California and joined O’Melveny & Myers, a blue-chip law firm where he would remain for the private-sector phase of his career. Enters government work In 1958, Mr. Christopher was a speechwriter for the successful California gubernatorial election campaign of Democrat Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. Mr. Christopher reportedly crafted the phrase “responsible liberalism” to describe Brown’s approach to social issues. In 1965, Brown named Mr.

Christopher vice chairman of the governor’s commission on the riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Mr. Christopher drafted the commission’s report, which amounted to a plea for better housing, education and jobs. In 1991, Mr. Christopher served on the commission that investigated the Los Angeles riots after the police beating of Rodney King. That commission’s report, which detailed police misconduct and racism, proposed significant reforms that were overwhelmingly approved in a referendum. In 1967, Mr. Christopher came to Washington as deputy attorney general to Ramsey Clark in the Johnson administration. That summer, he recommended sending the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to Detroit to quell rioting. During the unrest that followed the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, he coordinated efforts to control disturbances in Chicago. He returned to his Los Angeles law practice during the Republican presidencies of Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford. In 1977, Carter selected Mr. Christopher to serve as deputy secretary of state under Cyrus Vance. At his confirmation hearings, Sen. Jacob K.

Javits (R-N.Y.) charged that the nominee had known of and condoned illegal Army surveillance of domestic dissidents while he was serving in the Justice Department. Despite Mr. Christopher’s denials, the allegation resurfaced 20 years later when the Associated Press uncovered a memorandum with Mr. Christopher’s initials indicating that he was aware of the surveillance. His aides said he must have forgotten the matter, and it faded from the public spotlight. The Tehran crisis As deputy secretary of state, Mr. Christopher was the Carter administration’s point man in denouncing the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and supporting a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. He was also charged with informing Taiwan that the United States would normalize relations with mainland China. In November 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. After a helicopter rescue attempt failed in April 1980, was followed by Vance resigned as secretary of state. Hoping to be named Vance’s successor, Mr. Christopher was disappointed when Carter appointed Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Maine).

According to his memoir, he considered resigning, but after a long nighttime jog, he decided against it. Mr. Christopher immersed himself in the hostage negotiations and often shuttled back and forth to Algeria, whose government was acting as an intermediary. On Jan. 16, 1981, Carter awarded him the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. In his personal life, Mr. Christopher was a tennis player and jogger, although as he aged he would confess, “I’ve been demoted to walking.” In December 1956, he married Marie Josephine Wyllis, a former schoolteacher. She and their children survive, along with a daughter from an earlier marriage. Rarely did Mr. Christopher display emotion in public. But on Jan. 20, 1981, as Carter was yielding the presidency to Reagan in Washington, Mr. Christopher was in Algiers to greet the planeload of freed hostages on the first leg of their journey home to the United States. It was a moving occasion, even for the usually stoic and reserved Mr. Christopher. “There were very few people with dry eyes, and I was not among them,” he said.

Question: Which US Secretary of State resigned from Jimmy Carter's administration in 1980 over the failed attempt to rescue the US hostages in Iran?
Answer: CYRUS VANCE